"Seeing the photograph is absolutely heartbreaking, but we have to do this", says Jeremy Wolfson
Taken in 1931 in Poland, the photo shows the wedding of Jeremy's grandparents Sara and Myer Wolfson. Myer was a Jewish minister in Liverpool and had travelled to Poland to study.
He met Sara there, they fell in love and later got married. In their wedding photo, they are surrounded by around 50 friends and relatives.
READ MORE: Liverpool's Deputy Mayor vows to end bin workers strike
Soon after their wedding Myer and Sara moved from Poland to Liverpool, where he was assistant minister of Childwall Hebrew Congregation. In 1936, Sara took her two daughters Betty and Phyllis to visit Poland, having to travel through Nazi Germany on the outward and return journeys.
That 1936 trip was the last time Sara ever saw her family.
Other than the bride and groom, everybody in the wedding photo were victims of the Holocaust. The Nazis invaded Poland in 1939 and Sara's family were presumed to be among the six million Jewish people murdered during WWII.
Sara and Myer's decision to settle in Liverpool saved their lives. Jeremy spoke to the ECHO about their story and the "black hole" left in his and so many Jewish families, caused by the Holocaust.
Jeremy, 43, is vice chair of the Merseyside Jewish Representative Council. He served Childwall as a Labour councillor from 2011 to 2019.
He has been involved in organising today's (January 27) service of remembrance at Liverpool Town Hall to mark Holocaust Memorial Day, which he said gives people the opportunity to reflect on the Holocaust and subsequent genocides, ensuring they are not repeated.
About his grandparents and their wedding photo, he said: "A few years ago, my uncle was doing some research and he saw that my grandfather had submitted testimony to Yad Vashem - the Holocaust memorial centre in Israel. It was very moving.
"It was never discussed because it was too hard. But the testimony document, submitted in 1978, shows my grandfather’s name, his and address in Sinclair Drive in Childwall.
"The document is about a relative and it says the relationship to the deceased is son-in-law. So, it's about my great-grandparents Sholem and Nechi Chmielnicki, their place of birth in Porozow, Poland. For the circumstance of death, he just wrote ‘Murdered by the Nazis’.
"It’s such a shock to see it written. We don’t exactly know what happened to them, my dad thinks they were shot, but we don’t know whether they went to the camps.
"After the war, my grandma stopped getting letters and it broke her. She had a bad heart, she died in 1975 and I never met her, but her story has always been a big part of the family.
"But it’s like a big black hole, you can see the family photograph from the 1930s, but even the young children died in the Holocaust. There’s nothing there to know what happened and you’re not going to get closure from something as bad as this."
Jeremy said he struggled to engage with Holocaust Memorial Day when he was younger, finding it too upsetting. However, as he grew up he realised the importance of remembrance and its role in ensuring such horrors don't occur again.
He added the feeling is all the more important now, as those who lived through WWII will soon not be around to speak for themselves. Jeremy said: "It’s so important that first-hand accounts are passed forward to future generations.
"There are so many videos and recordings from Holocaust survivors but soon they won’t be around to tell their stories. In a world where you have some Holocaust denial, lots of nasty stuff on social media, rising anti-semitism globally, lots of hate speech, there’s a risk of our collective memory going into oblivion and being forgotten."
Jeremy told the ECHO about Holocaust survivor Zigi Shipper, who earlier this month died on his 93rd birthday. Zigi survived the Lodz ghetto and the Auschwitz and Stutthof concentration camps in Nazi-occupied Poland.
He moved to the UK in 1947 and would share his experiences to schools across the country. Jeremy met Zigi on a number of occasions, as he would come to Liverpool often to speak to pupils at Alsop High School in Walton about the Holocaust.
Jeremy said: "I was very, very fond of Zigi. The work he did stops racism and discrimination and grows understanding.
"We should never forget what went on, we should never forget the victims and we should stop any racism in its tracks so it doesn’t happen anywhere.
"Now, we do what we can to keep their memories alive. I’m third generation and it's up to us to speak out and to organise.
"It’s really important, so their memories aren’t forgotten. This actually happened, it’s not fantasy, human beings actually did this to each other. That is disgraceful and we have to fight discrimination whenever we see it.
"We need this not to happen again anywhere. And to do that, you have to remember and that’s why Holocaust Memorial Day is so important. It's an honour to still be involved."
Liverpool's Town Hall, Cunard Building and St George’s Hall will be lit purple today to mark Holocaust Memorial Day. The Town Hall will hold a service of remembrance for invited guests, featuring prayers, an Act of Commitment, poems and a performance from the King David High School choir.
READ NEXT
Teenage gunman 'sparked open gang warfare on streets of Liverpool'
Met Office warns of 'severe' cold weather into the weekend
Downfall of 'Latvian Pablo Escobar' as 'Jimmy Line' drug ring smashed
Shein shoppers 'scared' after finding 'disturbing' note inside her parcel
